Ranma the Ninja Warrior
by SilverBullet23
Summary: Ranma loses Akane just before he is supposed to marry her. That loss along with the loss of his mother does unexpected things to him
1. Prologue

This is a story that is totally off the wall. I got the idea for this story while I was watching the Ranma ½ Anime series. I had read a series of books by Eric Van Lustbader starting with the book "Ninja" and I had an interesting idea for a crossover. Please keep in mind while you are reading this fanfic that it is mainly basing the character for Ranma on the Anime series only and taking some from the series of books. This will also incorporate some general assumptions given in several other fanfics on this site.

Please also do not assume that this fanfic will follow the events in the Anime or the manga, it is actually based about twenty years in the future, from the end of the manga or Anime that is.

One other note, I am not too well versed in using the traditional anime terms so please feel free to write me reviews and giving suggestions, I would welcome the criticism, but please no flames or spiteful reviews. Be nice but critical. This is my first time writing one of these fanfics and I am not very sure how it will go.

Disclaimer- I did not make up these characters, because I would probably not be writing this fanfic if I had, I would most likely be driving around in a Trans Am and living in a mansion purchased from the astronomical proceeds of the idea.

Ranma the Ninja Warrior

Prologue

A darkly clothed ninja sneaks over the wall of the Tendo Dojo. It is pitch black and the perfect night for revenge. There are no lights to spoil the dark contours of the back yard, and the koi pond is as smooth as glass. The stars glare with a wilting light, but the figure in black takes no notice.

"Ranma, you had your way with my life once too often!" a deep voice growls. "Even though I thought you were my best friend, why did you have to do that to me!?" continues the black clad figure, in a tone barely above a thought, "A ronin, and all because of your damn pervertedness!!"

The figure has reached the back door of the dojo, and instead of crashing through it as a normal anime Burgler would, he slowly picks the lock and slides the door open, softly now, in order to have none of the Masters of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts wake up.

The figure goes first to Akane's room, puts a cloth over her mouth, and then throws the limp girl over his shoulder. Then, silently, the figure sneaks back over the wall and away from the Dojo, never looking back at the place where the people who tortured him are sleeping.

He takes the limp girl and runs across the rooftops until he gets to the other side of Tokyo. Then starting a long trek, he gets to his hideaway, well before midnight.

"Well, that's one part of the bait!" and with that and an evil cackle he starts running at full speed, back towards the city leaving a helpless Akane tied and gagged in such a way that there is no way she could get loose, even though she is totally knocked out from the hellish sleeping potion the ninja had given her.

A trail of dust winds its way from the hideout to the edges of the city. Then begins the trail of rooftops. It ends at a somewhat familiar house. It is the Saotome residence.

The only person who has lived in it has done many things over the years. She has mainly been worried about finding Ranma, her son. Now in these last two years since he saved her and did it in spite of the seppuku pledge on his life, becoming a man among men in her own eyes, she has slept deeper and more relaxed. She knows that she will have a son she can trust, unlike that idiot she married. She has followed her nightly ritual, practicing some katas and her daily kendo routine before collapsing into bed, it had been a rough week, what with all that fuss over Ranma turning 18 and being named as the head of the household only three days ago, and the wedding scheduled to take place on Monday, only two days from now. The hectic life after years of doing nothing but searching has taken its toll on Nodoka Saotome. After passing over the clan sword to her daughter she gave him strict instructions on its use. She finally believed that she had gotten over her disappointment in the curse, after all it was useful in at least one aspect, the demon hunting clan could go about their work, with their first male heir, from a hidden matriarchal society the first man would do the work of a woman, and protect Japan from the demons, that seemed to be dying off, now that she had been using the sword. She now had to practice with her own sword, the one her mother had given her long years ago when she first became a demon hunter by killing a minor demon lord with her bare hands. An amazing feat but paling in the light of Ranma's spectacular defeat of one of the highest ranking demons at the tender age of seventeen and a few months. Just giving the magic sword, it was losing its magic, like all cursed or blessed people seemed to do, was a great relief, she no longer had to shoulder the burden, albeit not a great one since the last demon had been killed off in that one great battle about a 6 months ago, where she and Ranma had fought side by side while Genma, that worthless lout, and Soun stayed safely hidden beneath that precious rock of theirs. That was the last time she had ever thought of the curse being a curse, instead she had changed sides of the coin and now called it a blessing.

Eventually her train of thought runs out as she lies on the bed. She lies there looking at the ceiling and watching the stars out the window, and then she starts to notice that there is a strange smell on the air. She sniffs and starts to get up, but is totally unable to as she flops, paralyzed, back onto the bed. She tries to stay awake and actually succeeds at doing that. But she soon learns that it would have been better to be asleep.

The nightcrawler softly makes his way across the yard and comes up to the bedroom window on Nodoka's house. He can barely hold back the evil laughter he feels rising to the surface when he silently cuts a hole in the wall and lets in the gas. He waits the correct amount of time and then quickly pulls the window out, darts around to the other window and does the same thing to it. He then backs off until the gas clears. He then goes in and slings the terrified Nodoka over his shoulder. He knows that his plan is working perfectly, too perfectly.

As he swiftly runs over the roofs of Tokyo he realizes his mistake, he forgot to leave the correct notes in the correct places, but he is already too far committed to worry about that, he will simply stash Nodoka in his secondary hideout somewhere on the other side of town and then continue back and fix the notes. So, he leaves her tied up and comes back to switch the notes.

Ramna is just waking up. He looks around the screen to where Akane has been staying the nights for the past six months and finds her gone, her bed rumpled and a note on her pillow.

'That's odd' Ranma thinks, 'she usually doesn't leave a note when she goes out on her morning run.'

He goes over to find out what the note says

_I have your Mother!_

_Unless you bring yourself and yield your life you forfeit the life of your Mother,_

_Ranma, and don't think I am joking, this is for real!!_

_BwaHaHaHaHaHa_

That brought some clear thinking into Ranma's head 'Why would Akane leave such a note, that is quite odd?' '!!!' "What was that?" Ranma wonders aloud, as he hears a noise against the window. As he turns to look he sees a ninja sitting there. Ranma doesn't think, he just attacks, through the glass and everything else in the way, he leaps for the ninja, thinking that it is Akane and that she wants to have a fight and prove how good she is, but as Ranma grabs the figure it starts to fight back, in a style that Ranma has never seen before, it is the use of pressure points on the hands to force the body to obey, and it is very useful on an aggressive enemy with bare fists. Ranma is knocked down and hits the pool, splashing up a gigantic waterspout and comes out looking not just slightly peeved at being a girl again and almost boiling at the treatment she received from that ninja. She jumps out and starts following almost immediately.

She easily follows the tracks made by the ninja on the roofs. She can still see him in the distance but only barely can make out that he actually goes into an apartment building somewhere on the other side of downtown Tokyo.

Just as Ranma starts to really get warmed up and hit her stride, a roof caves in below her and plunges her straight into the girls side of a bath house. Underwater Ranma makes the change back to male and desparately tries to hold his breath to get to the other side of the house, under the wall separating him from the men's side of the pool. He doesn't quite make it and as he sticks his head up from the pool he starts to hear the screaming of "Pervert! Pervert!" "Get away you lecherous old man!" and then realizes that he had accidentally dropped in on one of Happosai's weekly bath house trips. He scrambles from the water and gets away as quickly as possible because he wants to catch the ninja. He manages to get going again but that fall and Happosai's lecherous behavior had cost him five minutes of time that, he was quite sure of this by now, he would live to regret.

Within the next five minutes he had made it to the apartment building and hopped in the window he had seen the ninja enter by. The sight curled his hair, curled his toes, and dropped him to his knees, screaming in grief. The sight that had greeted him as he entered the building was a horrific one. His mother was propped up against the wall, blood running out of various cuts, and with two limbs severed most of the way and the other two limbs, being hacked to bits and nowhere to be seen. She was still conscious though and she was moving her lips in a way that suggested she wanted to say some last words.

"What... did....I....do...to...des..erve...this?" Nodoka whispered weakly, her life draining out of her.

Ranma cradled her head in his arms and held his dear mother, the second person in the world that he really truly loved, as she died.

"Save.........Akane!" Nodoka gasps with her last breath. "Sa......"

Ranma is in shock as he sits there with the blood cooling and congealing on his clothes. He can hardly process this. 'Why is my mother here dead?' he asks himself, 'and what did she mean by "Save Akane"?' he wonders. 'Maybe he left some clues at my mom's house.'

Slowly the shock wears off enough for him to move. He is able to get up, and then takes off, at his top speed for Nodoka's house. He gets there, bloody and disheveled, and runs into the house. He goes to Nodoka's bedroom where he sees the broken windows and the same disarray as in his room. He looks on the pillow and finds a note reading

_Ranma_

_You stole my honor, now you will pay_

_I have your love, so now will she die_

_If you want to save her you will have_

_to give yourself up to me to face a _

_punishment of death, which is_

_better than you gave me._

_Meet me at the old quarry where _

_Cologne trained Ryoga. There you_

_shall learn the meaning of pain._

Ranma, totally griefstricken, heads straight for home to pack the supplies he will heed for his trip, not many since he is resigned to die for Akane. He is desperately in love with Akane. Ever since about a year and a half ago she started to understand him and he fell in love with her in a way that had been foreshadowed by the way the two acted during their sophomore year in high school. They had actually come to admire each other during that year of battle and heartache, and then it actually showed up during their junior year. It went so far that they were couple of the year in their senior yearbook. It was working out so perfectly now, and even despite their parents protests refused to marry until they were done with high school and were both 18. Ranma had been looking forward to living his life with Akane, a kind an loving girl, if ever there was one on earth there could have been no other for Ranma. This grief sped his feet. By noon he was almost there.

He started into the valley and stopped short when he heard Akane scream. That scream lent wings to his feet. He started to run, faster and faster. Just as he got there the ninja finished what appeared to be a hair treatment on Akane and turned to face Ranma.

"Stay right there Ranma," he said, "or else Akane dies right now."

Ranma started to move but came up short when he felt a tiny tap on a certain spot and just couldn't move. He tried to move, but he soon found that he was almost completely paralyzed, he just had enough balance that he stayed on his feet.

Just then, the ninja lets Akane go and tells her "This is one of those perverted boys you have been having so much trouble with every day, I think he needs a lesson in courtesy"

Ranma big sweats.

He looks at Akane and sees no recognition of him in her eyes. Then the ninja gloats as Akane slowly gets up.

"Hey Ranma, beaten up by your own fiancé, what irony, didn't this used to happen lots about two, three years ago?" He gloats even more "Ranma, she doesn't even remember the past three years right now, she will never remember them again because I will kill her in front of your eyes after she has beaten on you for a while."

"BwaHaHahahaHaHahahaHaHahaha, the evil laugh sounded.

Three days later, Nabiki, the now straight con girl, found Ranma, aimlessly wandering the streets of Tokyo. He had missed the wedding and so had Akane. She was incredibly glad to see Ranma and went up and tried to talk to him. Ranma would have nothing to do with her, which Nabiki noted, for their relationship at that time that was 'just kinda weird.' Ranma did not resist however when she slowly coaxed him to the Tendo Dojo and brought him inside. She got him to the main room of the house and let him almost collapse on the floor. Nabiki was still only slightly worried right now but she was letting it amp up another notch when Ranma asked to see everybody, and by everybody, he said that he meant Soun, Kasumi, Dr. Tofu, Genma, and even Happosai. Nabiki noticed something strange there, the tone of Ranma's voice was very depressed, never like the Ranma she knew, and then he hadn't asked for the old pervert Happosai, again very unRanmalike. So, not knowing what else to do, she went and got everybody.

Nabiki got everybody seated in front of Ranma and the story just started spilling out, in steel tones at first and then breaking into sobs of grief and something even deeper than grief. The story came out, and the whole family was sitting there in shock. Then Ranma shocked them all again.

"I'ill never practice the art again," he said simply, "it weren't enough to save the ones I loved most, why should I use such useless knowledge ever again? I vow that I'll never use my skills and will never have anything ta do with these schools again, I can't live with this, and the practice of such skills'll only make the loss greater. So I give up my claim to the Anything Goes School. I'll never practice the art again."

This is my first fanfic. Please let me know how you like it. If you don't understand where I am going, just wait until my first real chapter comes out!

Disclaimer: Again, restating what I said at the beginning of this piece, These characters and ideas are not mine. If they were, I would be rolling in dough at this very instant instead of writing this.


	2. Chapter 1 The Awakening

This is the first chapter of my fanfic. Any reviews would be helpful.

Disclaimer:

I do not own, and never have, owned any of these characters. Although I wish that I did because it would make my life so much easier. Just think of all the things I would be doing with that money, not spending my time writing a fan fiction.

* * *

The Awakening

An evil persona, dressed in his business suit, but evil all the same, was sitting at his desk, deep in the basement of Tokyo. The man started to write something, but as with the last few hundred tries, shredded it up and threw it away. It wouldn't do to have someone see these tries. He was the oyabun after all, the head of all the Yakuza. It wouldn't do to have his most loyal bodyguard try to even a score that was thought have been settled nearly 17 years ago. The action needed to be stopped before it had a chance to go anywhere, it would be bad for business if that happened.

* * *

Ranma awakened to the incessant scream of his alarm clock. It was seven am, which was bad, but to make it worse, it was also Monday. He had to be to work by nine and he still needed to do a lot of things. He got up and started making a small breakfast of some miso soup and tea. He soon had eaten his fill, a small quantity compared to what had been his norm years earlier. 'Maybe I am getting soft in my old age,' he thought,. 'My 35th birthday will be coming up next month. God, has it been that long? What is it… nearly 17 years since….' "No I can't think about that! I won't!"

Losing Akane had put enormous stress on Ranma. After nearly losing her several times in the years previous to the actual loss, first with Saffron, then during the demon war, and then actually losing her, he suffered greatly, and it still hurt to think about her at all - not that he would wish not to think about her. She meant too much.

Just this morning had been almost too much thinking about the loss so he would call in late this morning and take a little time to clear his head before going to work. It wouldn't do to have nearly fifteen years of therapy thrown down the drain by not being careful enough in keeping meditation and cool. His renunciation of martial arts had been a start on the right path but he just couldn't keep from that path. He still practiced daily and was still in as good or better form than he had been all those years ago. The difference was that he refused to use his skill. It was all just a workout now, if he had to he would be able to fight again but it would not be anywhere near the level it had been those years ago.

Another side effect of his battle meditation, his meditation was through katas, was the fact that he could control the temperature of any water that hit him. He was able to ki charge the air around himself so that he could keep any cold water that hit him from changing him by giving it energy and warning it up and then taking the energy away from it when it flowed away, losing very little energy and an effective shield from the curse's effects.

Just these few things allowed him to separate himself from his past life. He couldn't deal with everything yet. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder his shrink called it but he just didn't care. He couldn't stop thinking about it, about the good times and the bad. They all were happy times, not like now, a perfect Shi Shi Hokodan would have been easy at any time. Very unlike Ranma, more like Ryouga without the pig curse.

'Why bother,' Ranma thinks, 'maybe thinking about a happier time will cheer me up a little and I can actually get to work at a later time, I really can't do this too often. I really don't want to mess up my job.'

Flashback: Demon War

It all started when Ranma had gone to Akane's room, as had been his custom. After all, they had been sleeping in the same room, different beds, for about 5 months This was just another normal vacation day, sunbathing at the beach for a while, and an interesting experience with Ranma teaching Akane how to get that extra scoop of ice cream for free. Then it all happened, and everything he knew had changed.

Ranma had heard something going on upstairs and quickly set out to investigate. When he had gotten there he opened the door and discovered Akane, laying on her bed in the nude, with Happosai nuzzling parts of her body that only Ranma - when he was married to her - would be allowed to touch. When Happosai noticed Ranma - an easy feat due to his sudden flare of battle aura - he quickly exited the room through the nearest wall and disappeared on one of his panty raids. Ranma quickly covered his quivering finacée, and held the terrified girl close. She hadn't been able to do anything to stop the pervert because Happosai was just too strong for her to get away from, and that was without being subjected to a paralysis point first.

Ranma helped her get dressed and then they went downstairs once she had a bit of control over herself again. The first person who learned what had happened was Kasumi. Quickly Ranma had outlined the plan for what was going to happen and Kasumi took Akane to see her husband, Dr. Tofu. Ranma then went in search of the old lecher. That turned into an all day job because the old lech had skipped town to go steal panties and bras from the farm girls. Ranma figured this out after an hour long search and decided to wait at the dojo for him to come back.

Later on that evening during supper, Ranma told everyone what had happened and announced his plan openly, just as Happosai came in yelling his customary "Whatta haul! Whatta haul!" It didn't take the old freak long to figure out what was going on when everyone around the table started to back away from Ranma. An aura that had mostly been held in check by the boy started to grow much larger than anyone ever could have believed.

"I challenge you for the title of Grand Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts," Ranma said coldly, contrary to what his aura was showing. "You do not deserve and have never deserved that title and now I'll take it away from you. I challenge you to meet me and fight me tomorrow in the boys gym at the school. Lunch time will be fine by me." With that Ranma took Akane by the hand and went up to Akane's room to try and comfort her again. Seeing the old man had set her on edge all over again.

The next day, Ranma waited in the boys' gym at lunch, though it wasn't a long wait. Happosai showed up along with everyone who knew Ranma - fiancées and their families, the Tendos, Dr. Tofu, everyone. Cologne, who also hated Happosai for completely different reasons, decided to act as judge, given that everyone else seemed to have appinted her anyway. They knew that she was the only one who could actually follow the two fighters in their extreme speed at which the match was sure to be fought.

It started soon after the combatants faced each other. Happosai launched the first attack by throwing buckets of cold water, which Ranma promptly dodged. The fight just got nastier. Not only were punches flying everywhere but things were definitely getting out of control for such a tight area.

The two artists were not just fighting with hands and feet but were starting to use their ki attacks at low power. It was almost like a warm up rather than a fight. They seemed to be testing each other out but it was causing massive collateral damage. People were jumping out of the way of explosive balls of energy and were being thrown several feet due to the tremendous air pressure generated by the blows the martial artist and the pervert were throwing. It was just getting to be a little too much for the enclosed space. Fortunately a break from the fight was about to happen.

During a short lull in the fight, granted as they both backed up at the same time to gauge the other's current strength, a hole appeared in the wall, revealing a girl on a bicycle who had just barely missed Ranma. The bike continued passed the battle and went straight on to flatten three haughty Kunos and use them as a handy bike rack - probably the most use a Kuno has been in years. While all that was happening, the girl had glomped onto Ranma and was swiftly removed by a very angry Cologne. "Didn't I tell you not to interrupt this fight Xian Pu?" Just as swiftly as she had arrived, the girl was dragged off by the little old lady on the stick.

The full extent of her escapades, however, allowed Ranma to notice the hole in the wall. Wanting more room for quite some time by this stage, he started to run out it with Happosai following behind very quickly. Ranma then made his way as fast as he could to the nearest open field in hopes of avoiding hurting anyone else, as he knows what's going to be coming soon.

When they got there, they didn't even wait for the gathered crowd to follow before continuing their fight. Ranma was getting slowly weaker while Happosai seemed not to have even warmed up. 'This is gettin' annoyin,' Ranma thought. 'Time to bring a secret weapon on the field.' He suddenly jumps backwards out of the fight. And lands, catlike, on the grass. "Time to finish this fight, old freak," he yelled as he slowly seemed to change.

This unexpected change was a really big shock for everyone who knew Ranma. They suddenly saw him in the standing stance that was usually invoked when he went into the Neko-ken. As Ranma's eyes turned to slits, Happosai noticed this and his eyes bulged. Cologne on the other hand started proclaiming how the neko-ken could never be mastered, but Ranma had somehow done the impossible. The technique had been sealed by the Amazons for many thousands of years because it was simply impossible for any of the trainees to ever actually control when they went into it or how they acted in it - if they even survived the training in the first place, that is.

Akane shook her head, knowing that he had actually been working on that technique for several weeks now. No one, including Akane - who firmly believed in Ranma - thought that he could actually pull this off.

Ranma, instead of having to see a cat and then going into berserker mode from fright, had actually just figured the secret out. He was thinking hard, going into his brain using the control over his body to plumb the secrets of his brain. While in the gym and being limited to just normal moves, he had seen how good a traditional fighter Happosai really was, and knew he had to up the ante.

He cataloged the damage, thinking about the hits he had already received. One almost dislocated shoulder, one hit on that damn moxibustion of weakness point. 'Wait a sec,' he thought. 'Isn't the reversal point permanent? Then why... Kuso! There's a second one in symmetry with the first, even though it wasn't on the chart!'. Aside from that, he had also been hit in ten different pressure points, making certain things difficult to do, and more bruises than could be counted at the moment. Then Ranma, in his secret, calculating way that he had trained into his fighting with the Hiryu Shoten Ha, starts going over his memories.

From the moment that Shampoo first touched him to the instant he changed to adapt and use the neko-ken was less than 10 seconds, but in that time he had accomplished more than he had in the past three weeks. He successfully saw and conquered his fear of cats and dragged from the depths of that fear the actual knowledge used for the ki attacks - the ki claws and the various catlike traits.

The changes hit him hard as he realized that he will have access to the new talents for the rest of his life. The ki claws extended, and he quickly explored his stances, testing which one would work the best, and ended up settling for a slightly crouched but still standing stance.

Happosai looked on in near panic. The last time he had fought a neko-ken victim was when he had attempted to train his first student in it. He had nearly died, partly because of his inexperience in dealing with that kind of attack, but mostly because the berserker was so damn good. He was terrified to have to face the same technique, but what really frightened him was the intelligence behind it. Normally nothing frightened Happosai - okay, maybe a few things, like used guys jockstraps and the like - but not someone in a fight!

This was never supposed to happen to him, the Grand Master of Anything Goes, he couldn't lose this fight. 'That moxibustion point should be working so it will only be the ki that I need to worry about, not the strength. Good thing I found that one on myself and didn't put it on the chart I copied from the real one, which is still safely hidden away.'

Ranma, in the middle of his thought, broke it off in realization that he only his the ki claws and no strength. 'Yeah, that's right... I need to nullify the moxibustion point…. how to do that... Ah ha. Here's the point I need, I'll just channel some heated ki to that point, and... got it. Now I have one up on Happosai, he won't expect me to keep my strength.' Then the battle royale started again. Ranma started things off again with his usual style.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" he yelled as he started using the Chestnut Fist to try and pummel Happosai. The old freak just casually blocked the complex attack using only a single hand.

'Damn,' Ranma thought to himself. 'Well, I'll just have to up the level. I know that I might just as well skip the Hiryu Shoten Ha, because he knows it and'll be watching for it, so what does that leave me? Maybe...' He continued using the Chestnut Fist, just to give him a chance to think. 'Maybe if I combined the claws of the neko-ken with the Chestnut Fist, I could at least hurt the old goat...'

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken Revised!" Ranma suddenly yelled, which was not a big shock for most people, until he finished with something more unusual. "NEKOKA KYOURAN" Suddenly Happosai had to actively dodge as Ranma uped the tempo about ten notches all at once, and also started to use his unblockable ki claws to strike at Happosai.

The old troll decided to start really taking this challenge seriously right about now. And really, building up his ki shield was the only thing he could think of to even start to blunt the claws. 'This is getting a little too close for my own good,' Happosai thought. 'Better start going full out now.' He decided to use the only attack that he could muster from within his ki shield. "CHIKAN NO HARAISE!" he yelled, and at the same time let a very pink and very small, but incredibly powerful ki ball… er, correction, pair of panties… fly at Ranma. At the same time a very embarrassed Ranma decided to think again while keeping the old goat occupied.

'How did he do that, I know how to do the Mokou Takabisha, but how do I counter that? It's nowhere near strong enough!... Maybe… I can use my neko-ken to generate a large claw that will be as strong. That's it! Use that and maybe I can beat him yet!'

Ranma got set into a really weird stance with all ten of his fingers tips together pointing at the second ki attack that Happosai let off. The first one had missed because Ranma, while thinking, had had the presence of mind to dodge it, jumping just in time to avoid damage to his manhood.

The only problem with the dodge was the fact that that attack actually somewhat locks on. That problem became larger when Tatewaki Kuno, standing behind Ranma, noticed the panties coming towards him. He started to run but it was useless, only a sudden move – like the one Ranma had unknowingly performed – would break the lock-on. Nobody turned away from the fight even when a strange soprano howl was heard quickly making its way to the stratosphere.

Happosai saw the fingertips coming together and decided that this might not have really been the best time to piss Ranma off. He started to really concentrate on his ki attack. He couldn't make it any bigger but he could control the direction. He just figured that Ranma was going to dodge it again.

"KANAN KATTAA!" Ranma yelled. A glowing claw shot out from the tips of his fingers, looking like a tiger claw, only much, much too large. It was still a rather small attack, considering the strength it had behind it. The energy was almost as much as Ranma could give. It was a last ditch move, made by a need for something that would actually hurt the old freak. There was enough energy in that small claw to completely decimate the entire city of Tokyo and any outlying areas, only slightly less than a 10 megaton nuclear bomb would give off.

Happosai, at seeing this, did not know what to make of it. He did not believe that Ranma could find anything to counter one of the many ultimate attacks of his perverted version of the true School of Anything Goes. He was a little scared though. His major mistake had been in underestimating opponents before, and it had nearly gotten him killed. Not that he wouldn't mind seeing the boy reap the results of being the new Grand Master…

He chuckled to himself as he thought about that.

That demon town… it had been during those ten years he had been sealed up in that cave. He had been meditating, and had suddenly found himself on an island in the midst of a molten sea of lava. There had been the most beautiful girl there, more beautiful than any human girl could ever be. He had succumbed to his desires and gone and snatched her bra and panties, copping a feel along the way. That was the start of it all, and he knew it. He had been captured and taken to the girl's father almost at once, and the awful realization of what he had done started to sink in. He only told them that he was the Grand Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. They had sent him back to the cave promising to hunt down his physical body and kill him. They didn't make the promise just for him, but for anybody who claimed that title, because he hadn't told them his name.

He had done a good job of hiding from the spotlight up until now, but with the public eye on this fight, it wouldn't be long until they found him if he was alive, or went after Ranma if he won. Demons didn't really care who they killed, so long as it was the being who claimed the title.

The only sound after Ranma let loose the ki claw was the sound of indrawn breath from the crowd. They knew that either one or the other would win based solely on the outcome of this single attack. It almost seemed to be happening in slow motion as the two attacks came together and fused into one. The combination slowed down but still moved towards Happosai, the glowing Claw firmly embedded in the panty. The two attacks still opposed each other, but slowly the claw absorbed the panty attack, turning the claw crimson as it approached Happosai.

He saw this happening and instantly knew that he was either dead, or mortally wounded, as he had no time to dodge, he could just stand there, barely getting time to even start to raise a ki shield.

The claw ripped through the ki shield and hit Happosai's arms, which he had crossed in front of him. Two forearms and the attached hands fell to the ground from the sharpness of the edge, cut completely off and not even slowing the attack down. It continued on, but slightly changed in course, the ki of the panties, not having changed function, sought out the genitals on the person towards whom it was heading, pulling the claw along. By this time though, the claw had entered the body of Happosai, just above the stomach. It pulled along through the body until it reached its goal, and exploded

Ranma, stunned at what had just happened, and drained of ki, slowly started to slump to the ground. He was just barely caught by Akane, who rushed up to him after the incredible heat had died down. Ranma, still upright, looked over towards Happosai, "D..id…..I…….w..i...i….n?" he asked weakly. "Is… h.ee….s…ti..llll….a…llliiveee?" Ranma wasn't to know either of these things as Akane briefly held up his hand and proclaimed, "Here is the Grand Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, Saotome Ranma!" and then just barely managed to catch him as he passed out.


End file.
